A Geography of Hope? Decolonizing Space Through the Storytelling and Place-Making of a Festival

Abstract

This study explores the potential for Caribbean festivals through storytelling and place-making to decolonize everyday spaces. It investigates the potential for festivals to transform places through festivals’ decolonial cultural and creative resources. The article begins with a review of relevant literature on festivals, storytelling, and place-making. Junkanoo in The Bahamas is presented as a case with which to explore how storytelling as counternarrative to colonial legacies and the neocolonialism of tourism can reaffirm the importance of the festival to place. While there are both placemaking (top-down approach) and place-making (bottom-up approach) processes at work for Junkanoo, passionate community members and cultural leaders provide continued agency alongside powerful placemaking structures. Two alternative conceptual models of place-making and placemaking and possible influences on everyday spatial geographies are presented. The conclusion offers a framework for continued theory development and practice in the decolonization of place through festival storytelling. Place-making with local storytelling enhances strategies for community development through the inclusion of underrepresented communities, especially African descendent populations, for developing more equitable frameworks for heritage justice.